


The Trouble With Thomas

by likehandlingroses



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Growth, Developing Friendships, Gen, M/M, Richard Ellis/Thomas Barrow, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22865272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Elsie Hughes has seen her fair share of difficult footmen—but Thomas Barrow is proving to be a challenge unlike any other.For better or worse, he sticks around long enough for Elsie to meet that challenge.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Elsie Hughes
Comments: 40
Kudos: 243





	The Trouble With Thomas

**Author's Note:**

> Your standard, mild content warnings for acknowledging Thomas’s canon depression/suicide attempt, as well as period/show-typical homophobia. 
> 
> The 1918 section is based off a deleted script moment where Thomas defends William coming to Downton when he’s dying. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy!

**1911**

The trouble with footmen, Elsie thought, was that the people upstairs thought of them as handsome, impassive statues—easy enough to pick up and place wherever they wanted to impress. 

But footmen were—ten to one—young men who would be better served keeping their head down doing honest work until they’d grown enough sense to move through the world responsibly. Sending them to London during the summer months felt like building a house on easily flattered sand, and she held her breath every year for a storm that would wash them all away. 

Never had any footman seemed less likely to improve under the London sky than Thomas Barrow. He hadn’t been at Downton long enough to take to it in the first place—though Elsie wasn’t sure whether he ever would. Not with Miss O’Brien at his shoulder. 

What had started as a quiet—if prickly—nature (not unusual for a young man just starting in his first big house) had turned into something surly and secretive and distinctly unpleasant. 

And how could that improve in London, with more ladies sizing him up at dinners, finding excuses to snatch something off a tray so they could hand him a smile in return? With Miss O’Brien whispering in his ear that anyone with sense would have made him first footman by now...poor Patrick looked more like a hunted rabbit each day under their disdainful stares. 

Mr. Carson saw the problem, but—as was his habit—he had come up with a different solution. 

“The fact of the matter is, I’m running out of excuses _ not  _ to promote him,” he said, looking up from his decanting. “At some point, Mrs. Hughes, skill must be awarded its due.”

“And so must nastiness.”

“If he’s placed as first footman, it might play to his better nature.” Even Mr. Carson didn’t look altogether convinced of his own suggestion. “Give him some pride in the work he does, and we may well see things smooth themselves out.”

Wishful thinking in the extreme...but Mr. Carson would have the dining room he wanted in London, sound reasoning or not. 

And if Elsie knew Thomas like she thought she did, they’d pay for it. 

* * *

**1914**

There was still light coming through the doorway of the servants’ hall. Elsie knew who she’d find before she poked her head in, though she was surprised Thomas hadn’t taken more pains to hide his nerves from the rest of the house. 

Mr. Carson was convinced he’d broken a glass at dinner on purpose (“he’s never done it before...and on his  _ last night, _ Mrs. Hughes? We’re lucky it was only the family”), and Thomas had snapped at Daisy so viciously at being asked why he hadn’t eaten anything that everyone had wished him gone already. 

Now he seemed determined not to go to bed. Elsie couldn’t blame him. Tonight, he was a footman in a great house. Tomorrow, he’d be a man going to war. 

He must have thought it better than leaving as a man without a job—which was what he deserved—but Elsie wondered if he’d given himself a worse hand than they’d have dealt him. 

Cigarette in one hand, a newspaper in the other, he looked determined to play a convincing part until the end, even if now it was only for the benefit of himself. 

And  _ her _ , she realized as his eyes stopped moving across the page. 

“I’m going up,” she said, taking a half-step forward. 

“I’ll put everything straight when I’m finished with it.” Thomas’s eyes never left his paper. 

That should have been all; he’d done everything he could to make sure it was all anyone _ could _ say to him. And even then, you risked getting your hand bitten…

“You’ll want some rest before you go,” she said. “Mr. Carson says you’ve an early train.” 

He tapped his cigarette on the ashtray beside him. “I’ll be gone before breakfast.”

“So we’re to be denied the chance to see you off?”

“I think we’ll all survive the disappointment.” He smirked, but the expression was so joyless that Elsie wondered if she’d miscalculated the point of it all—the skulking and stealing and senseless unkindness. If she could have picked a word to describe it all, it’d have been “self-satisfied.” 

But he was leaving with everything he wanted, on his own terms, and yet he seemed to take no satisfaction from it. 

Which meant somewhere in the past four years, she’d missed something. 

“Well,” she sighed. Whatever else it meant, he was right: there would be no love lost at his departure. “I wish you’d leave it and go to bed.”

He pursed his lips, but didn’t look up: 

“I can’t see what difference it makes to you.”

And maybe that had been the trouble all along. 

* * *

**1918**

“I don’t see why William shouldn’t come here.”

Elsie didn’t stop to see Major Clarkson bristle at Thomas’s words. The decision had been made, whether he liked it or not. William was home where he belonged; how anyone could object to that was beyond Elsie’s understanding. 

She hadn’t, however, thought it beyond Thomas’s (“that’s  _ Sergeant Barrow,  _ now, Mrs. Hughes”). 

He thought himself grander than ever, wearing his new position as a kind of vindication.  _ See what you’ve missed out on, _ he seemed to say. If only they’d all ignored the missing bottles and stolen money, the nastiness and unsociability...they might have kept someone sharp and efficient and capable. They were all tired of having their judgments stuck under their nose as Thomas attempted to prove a point that wasn’t as sound as he wished it was. 

Still, one good turn might turn into two if nurtured, so she made a point to catch him later in the day. 

“I know you and William weren’t friends, but it was kind of you to stick up for him.”

Thomas looked as embarrassed as she’d ever seen him.

“Not like they care what I think. I’m still a nobody when it comes to it,” he grumbled. “But I’m not sorry he’s here, and I won’t pretend to be. Why shouldn’t he go where he likes, when he’s finished anyway?”

He looked impatient at her shock. “Look, I’m sorry for it, but that’s the truth.”

“His poor father…” she sighed. “He’ll be up again this afternoon. I don’t know how much luck they’ve had getting him to accept the inevitable.”

Thomas held the door to the staircase open for her. 

“Can you blame him?” he said. “I’d take my time believing it—he’ll have plenty of time to face it once it’s happened, won’t he?”

She shook her head. “They haven’t taken the cynic out of you, whatever else.”

“I won’t ask what you mean by that.”

But he sounded pleased. 

“Have you seen him?” she asked, guessing at something hinted. 

He stopped before she did on the stairs, and she turned to look up at him. The guilt, she expected to see: even Thomas Barrow must have a well of it somewhere or other.

But she wondered about the way he seemed to turn the guilt over in his mind, and how resigned he seemed at the weight of it. She wouldn’t have thought him so practiced…

“I don’t think it’d help,” he said. 

Five minutes ago, she’d have agreed. Now—

“It might.” 

She never found out if he took her advice, though there was a sureness in his step during Daisy’s wedding that told a story she supposed  _ Sergeant Barrow _ planned on keeping to himself. 

* * *

  
**1920**

Thomas was shaking like a leaf in his chair, and the embarrassment in the air wasn’t helping matters. If she could have found the words, Elsie would have told him that it wasn’t his fault—not the way he thought it was, anyway. 

They’d known about him almost since the beginning—she hadn’t thought he’d taken much care to hide it. She’d thought his antics silly and irresponsible, fueled by vanity and a sense of excitement rather than any substance...but that was no different from any young person’s romantic exploits. 

Only it  _ was  _ different, and the proof if it was staring her in the face.

“You’re angry; I knew it,” he murmured. 

“I’m not,” she said, trying to ignore how his shoulders collapsed at the denial. She couldn’t tell if it meant he believed her or not. “Not at you, anyway.”

That bit meant something to him, but she could see him pull back from the words before they could quite sink in. 

“So you’re not surprised, then,” he said, so earnestly that Elsie’s breath caught in her chest. 

Those were the choices—she was either angry or resigned. Shocked and disgusted, or prepared for inevitable disappointment. He presented them to her as if there could be no other reality than one where very little was expected from him, and even less would be tolerated. 

“I’m surprised at  _ James,” _ she side-stepped. “He must know you didn’t mean any harm.”

He frowned, but didn’t look at her; it would take more than that to liven him back up. She almost wished he’d bite back with something, give her some reason to believe he’d fight even if this round didn’t go his way. 

“People usually don’t. Think I don’t mean any harm,” he said. “And I know I—sometimes it’s easier not to ask them to. But I didn’t, not this time.”

_ I know you didn’t,  _ she wanted to say.  _ How could you? _

But it was more than that, it would always be more than that for someone like him, and she wanted to be sure she was understood. 

“When I was a girl, we had a neighbor—Mr. Walker—a kinder man I’ve never met. And he was that sort.” 

She paused, but Thomas had hardly reacted—he was staring just to the left of her chair, and she could see his chest moving with each breath. She tried to smile anyway—it was a happy memory, and she wanted him to know it. 

“He always had Mr. Harris over,” she continued. “And when I wondered to my mother about it, she said it was quite an accomplishment, finding someone to have a go at life with. And it wasn’t for us to poke and pull faces at the way other people arranged their hearths.”

It wasn’t always easy, but she’d done her best to hold to that advice—it didn’t help anyone to have coronaries over people’s private lives. There was a right and there was a wrong, but there was also a good deal Elsie supposed had been sorted for convenience’s sake rather than for the harm it was likely to cause. 

“But I don’t have a hearth, do I, Mrs. Hughes?” Thomas’s voice broke. “Just a place to work. And now I don’t have that anymore.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” she insisted. “James may have spoken out of a pride he won’t feel, once he realizes he’s not under fire himself. Will you let me try and speak to Mr. Carson?”

“You don’t have to—”

“—I do. And I’d like to.”

He nodded, still looking dazed. 

He didn’t believe she could do it, not for a moment—she could see it on his face. And as for her understanding, Elsie didn’t think he knew at all where to place that. 

But he had proof of it, now, and he could work out a space for it in his own time. 

* * *

**1921**

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ll be fine,” Thomas said, pinning on a smile. “You’d better ask Mr. Carson how he feels about  _ this _ coming anywhere upstairs in the next week.” 

He gestured at his face, the smile reaching its peak before fading away entirely. He did look a sight...if there was one thing young men in service were usually careful about, it was their faces. 

He wouldn’t scar, Dr. Clarkson didn’t think. But it would take some time before he was  _ up to standard.  _

Why had he done it? He hadn’t been drinking, and for all his faults, she’d never thought of him as someone who looked for fights (certainly not ones he wasn’t likely to win). 

She had her suspicions, but she prayed they weren’t true...there’d be little she could do about it if they were. 

“I wish you’d tell me what really happened.” She stepped forward, egged on by the blood leaving Thomas’s face. “James looked guilty as sin the whole way back—I suppose that has something to do with it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” 

Which meant he’d had everything to do with it...Elsie’s stomach twisted. 

“Because if he put them up to it—”

“—no, it wasn’t anything like that,” Thomas said, eyes wide. “Nothing like that, Jimmy wouldn’t—it wasn’t like that.” 

“So what was it like?” 

She let the silence linger long enough for him to relent. 

“They were after all the money he’d won, see,” he muttered into his lap. “And I...he’d been drinking. It wasn’t right, to let him go off on his own. So I kept an eye out. In case.”

His face was pink, and Elsie was struck with one of the more novel thoughts she’d had in a long while:

_ That boy doesn’t deserve him by half. _

“He’d have learned a lesson, at any rate,” she said. “And if he wanted a keeper, he ought to have treated you better.”

Thomas shook his head. 

“He just needs time.”

Not as much as Thomas did, it seemed...but there’d be no arguing with him. He’d learn the way everyone did—by working through his heart’s own breaks. 

If he could only come out the other side, he might find his way after all. 

* * *

**1925**

“—there isn’t anyone to tell,” Thomas interrupted Elsie before she could get the question out. “Not for something like this.”

“You don’t have to  _ tell them  _ if you’d rather not. Just say you’ve been ill, or—”

“—they won’t care, and it wouldn’t help.” 

And while Thomas had said many things in the past thirty six hours that Elsie hoped he’d soon learn weren’t true, she suspected this wasn’t one of them. 

“There’s no use looking sorry,” he said with a sigh, fixing a fold in his blanket with a sweep of his hand. 

But whether she looked it or not, she was and always would be. Sorry that she’d never asked, and even sorrier that he likely wouldn’t have told her if she had. 

“Anna said Master George was up here earlier; that must have cheered things up,” she said bracingly. “I’m surprised Lady Mary thought of it.”

Thomas almost smiled properly. “She was feeling guilty about something else, you could see it.”

Which sounded more like her...

“Still.” Thomas continued, looking at his hands. “It was good of her, bringing him up. I thought maybe they’d change their minds about me seeing so much of them, now. Though maybe I ought to get used to it.”

If she had her way...but Elsie couldn’t think like that. She knew—better than she ever had before—that family was family and work was work. It was easy to confuse the two, in the day-to-day, to let the lines blur and the standards mix. 

But there was nothing fuzzy or open to interpretation about the fact that Downton Abbey didn’t need Thomas Barrow to work there anymore, and he’d have to go. Whether the people there liked it or not. 

She didn’t know how they were ever going to explain to him that most people  _ didn’t  _ like it. That if all things were equal, he could stay where he was and everyone would be just as happy for it.

“There might be children, at your next place.” 

Though they both knew the younger the family, the less likely they were to be keeping up a house worthy of Thomas’s qualifications. 

“But not these ones.” His voice was so low she could hardly hear him. 

No Master George, who—legend had it—had once announced to the drawing room that ‘Mr. Barrow’ was his friend. No Little Marigold, tugging him along by the hand, saying more words in a minute than Elsie had heard the girl say in a month together. And no Miss Sybbie, who had walked straight up to him at Elsie’s wedding and said, “do you remember  _ me, _ Mr. Barrow?”, earning a smile Elsie had never seen before in response. 

Work was work and family was family...but the heart tangled things up so tightly, sometimes. Something had to break, and it was usually the most fragile parts first. 

“I’m tired of it.” His voice was hoarse, though he looked determined not to cry. “Of waiting to be shoved off for something else. Of nothing being  _ mine.”  _

“You won’t always have to. You’ll find things—people—of your own.”

He shrugged, and Elsie knew the words meant little, at the moment. 

He’d wanted to find those things  _ here.  _

* * *

  
**1926**

The servants’ hall hummed with excitement—a New Year, a new baby...and a new butler. 

Thomas was using his role as server to measure the feeling of the room—which was quite a step up from his earliest methods: they had generally involved making everyone angry on purpose and accepting the result. 

Things had changed: he wouldn’t want to come back if he wasn’t wanted, and Elsie prayed the room would give him the answer she believed it would. They’d all been so pleased to get his letters—there was something about the way Thomas turned a phrase that suited the page...or maybe there was something about the tranquility of a pen and paper that suited his nature.

That’s what he needed, Elsie had decided. To feel settled, wherever he was. Settled and safe and proud of where he’d planted his feet. 

“You’ve earned more credit with them than you realize,” she told him. 

His smile was sincere, but there was a familiar teasing note in the lift of his voice as he replied. 

“As long as I’ve earned it with you.”

* * *

Elsie knocked on the open door to the butler’s pantry, trying not to smile when Thomas stood up as if he were in trouble. 

“Her Ladyship’s gone with them to York after all, so it’ll just be Mr. Branson for dinner.” 

Thomas nodded. “I’ll tell Andy; thank you.” 

Elsie knew it would take him time to ease into the sort of give-and-take she and Charlie had learned over the years. In his heart of hearts, Thomas still saw her as a superior; he was a butler to the rest of them, but he hesitated to pull rank when it came to her. 

She’d have to prod him along until he got his sea legs...

“I meant to ask: did you ever find out what happened to the wine that was missing?”

Thomas had never been as good of a liar as he’d aspired to be—he stood with his mouth half-open for far too long before answering. 

“Oh, that,” he said, tacking on a grin. “I made a mistake—carried something over wrong. I thought I told you already.”

He met her eye, at least, by the end. Elsie took it as a good sign—whatever he meant by covering the truth, he thought it was right. 

She wouldn’t go trading his moral compass for her own just yet...but he’d fixed it up carefully over the years, and she trusted him with it.

“I see,” she said. “Well, I’m glad it’s settled.” 

Thomas nodded, though his smile was even less convincing than a moment before. He spoke again as she turned to leave: 

“I should tell you: Albert’s going down to London to see his family—I’ve given him some extra time.”

Elsie frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Only I think he’s homesick, and I’d rather not let it fester.” 

And now Elsie realized what he was trying to tell her. About the wine, about what he had determined to keep quiet, about the boy who had needed someone to see what the trouble was and do something about it. 

Thomas was almost laughing at her, standing there just inside the doorway, staring at him like she’d never seen him before. 

“What?” 

“You’ve grown all the way up.”

He looked down at his shoes, a real smile playing on his face. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, coy as ever. 

He’d have no trouble finding his legs. 

* * *

**Epilogue (Summer, 1927)**

The stepping stool that lived in the corner of the linen closet was missing. 

One of the maids that had swooped in for the royal visit must have stolen it away to another room, leaving Elsie to stare uselessly up at the shelf she’d used without a thought every morning for over twenty years. 

Of all the ridiculous things...it could be anywhere, by now, and wasn’t likely to be found again until Mrs. Webb and her team of silent, unsmiling housemaids had left the house and allowed her to  _ do her job  _ like she had for decades. 

“I can put it up for you.” Mr. Ellis approached from the end of the hall, no doubt coming back from the room the King would be commandeering. He was smiling, looking affable as ever, but that didn’t make Elsie any happier about being found floundering  _ in her own house.  _

“You’re busy,” she said. “I can find Andrew.”

“I don’t mind.” He stopped next to her, pointing at the top left shelf. “Just there?”

And though Elsie didn’t especially want to be in the debt of anyone in the Royal household, she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a relief, having at least one of them show any concern at all for the resident staff. 

“Rosie’s not to your shoulder, so you’ll find her carrying it around with her,” he said, though Elsie hadn’t told him about the missing step. 

“As long as she puts it back…” And despite her smile, Elsie couldn’t hide the doubt in her voice. 

“Oh, she will,” Mr. Ellis said as they came back down the hall. “She’s careful about that, anyway.” 

“Well, it’s good of you to—”

“Mr. Barrow!!” Master George’s voice came through the day nursery. “Mr. Barrow, can I read this part to you?”

“You can read all that?” She could hear Thomas’s fond smile, the one he usually saved for the children but was less foreign to the rest of the house than it used to be.

“Yes, can I read it to you?”

“Well, I have to see that, don’t I?” 

The door was open: Thomas sat on the chair beside George’s bed, Caroline on his lap, tapping a toy duck against his knee. Sybbie and the visiting Miss Marigold were tucked in a corner, playing an elaborate game of dolls. Johnnie was joining in by making do with the doll the girls had mutually decided they didn’t mind being held by the hair. 

Mr. Ellis stopped for too long, with too much intention, for Elsie not to notice. He was watching Thomas, who was following George’s hand on the page in rapt attention—she could see him pause whenever George hesitated, waiting to see if he needed help or just time. 

“You don’t see that in every house, do you?” she said. Mr. Ellis stopped smiling, just for an instant, just long enough for Elsie to think she’d gotten a view into what was happening.

“Plenty about Downton that’s like that,” he said, failing to be casual. 

He was hoping to find still more, if she was reading things right...but Elsie wasn’t rooting against him. He seemed kind and capable...and the maids downstairs had certainly done their job of whispering about him to the point of embarrassment. 

She had noticed Thomas’s own eyes lingering, but it wasn’t until now that she realized Mr. Ellis had been finding excuse after excuse to seek out Thomas’s company during the visit. 

“Mr. Barrow’s always been fond of them,” she said, hoping she wasn’t playing the fool in encouraging them. “The children.”

It seemed to mean something to him, but Mr. Ellis seemed all too talented at tucking things away before anyone could be quite sure of what they were.

Which, if Elsie was right, only made sense…

“I’m glad he’s taking advantage of his time off,” he said, holding the door to the staircase open for her. “Some people, it’d be too big a bruise to their pride for them to take in stride.” 

“It’ll take more than that to bring Mr. Barrow to his knees,” she said, laughing to herself. “He’s got spirit; always has.” 

He waited just a beat too long before asking:

“You’ve known him for a long time?” 

“He came here as a junior footman, must have been at least fifteen years ago now,” Elsie said, taking care not to act as though she’d noticed anything unusual in the question. 

“That’s something, alright,” he said, though he seemed almost not to have heard. 

“He’s a good man,” she added, hoping it wasn’t a step too far.

Mr. Ellis’s even smile did nothing to mask the sincerity in his voice:

“I was hoping you’d think so.” 

And when Thomas told her he’d be out in York the next evening (“with Mr. Ellis, he’s determined to convince me of something”), Elsie felt surer than ever that she’d read things right. 

And it was about time...


End file.
